7 Lesser Known Ways Harry Potter Could Have Died But Didn't
by WalnutSpirit
Summary: A look at some of Harry's close calls over the years, told through seven humor filled chapters... At some point one begins to wonder if this Boy Who Lived really had another secret magic about him, because man, was he close to dying a lot more than the many instances he was already famous for!
1. Chapter 1

**7 Lesser Known Ways Harry Potter Could Have Died But Didn't**

 **Summary:** A look at some of Harry's close calls over the years, told through seven humor filled chapters... At some point one begins to wonder if this Boy Who Lived really had another secret magic about him, because man, was he close to dying a lot more than the many instances he was already famous for!

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Chapter 1

Harry Potter had always been known as the Boy Who Lived, a name he earned himself at the age of one. He did not know of this until he started attending the magic school Hogwarts, and it wasn't until then that he would have to prove himself yet again worthy of the nickname. His life rather immediately took a turn for the more dangerous, and he did indeed prove that he wasn't as easy to off as his enemies would have liked. However, he was close to dying a bunch of times before he also became known as the Saviour of the World, times that had absolutely nothing to do with the war against evil... Times that as such aren't as widely known, or even to the boy in question himself.

Harry Potter had been living at Hogwarts for a month, and he could safely say that it was the best month of his life. He had started to learn his way around the castle, he'd found a great friend in Ron Weasley, and he wasn't getting beaten down by his cousin every day. He liked his lessons, well, most of them anyway, and he had also realised that he wasn't any worse off than any of the other students, even if he hadn't known about his magical heritage until that very summer.

Currently, he was sitting on top of his comfortable bed in the Gryffindor first year boys dorm room. He loved the dorm, it was cosy and homey in a way that the little area under the stairs that he used to call his place just wasn't. The dorm had no spiders, it had a proper, good bed, and he got to share it with four other nice boys. Harry sometimes, late at night, would still pinch his arm just to make sure that this was all real, and not only a fantasy that he'd managed to escape to in his dreams. He was just now reading in one of his school books, the first year book for Potions class. Snape was not his favourite teacher, far from it, but he had assigned them reading homework, and Harry thought he might as well do it. Partly because he assumed the subject was on the curriculum because it was important for them to know, partly because Snape had had that look in his eyes that usually told his students that he was secretly threatening them with a pop quiz.

Without looking, he reached down to his trunk, to find the wrapped up sandwich he had made himself during lunch in the Great Hall. It was around tea time and he was feeling rather peckish, and had saved the sandwich for just such an occasion. It was filled with butter and orange jam, something he never used to get at the Dursleys – Dudley would always grab it before he had a chance. He kept reading, to his surprise finding it much more interesting than sourly Snape made it seem in class, and unwrapped the sandwich. As he wasn't paying proper attention to it, he didn't notice the smell that came from it. It felt soft and almost inclined to fall apart, but he didn't linger on the thought, thinking that it might after all had gotten a bit smushed in his bag during the day. Just as he was about to take the first bite, the door opened, and two laughing voices filled the room. Harry looked up to see Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan, two of his dorm mates, talk animatedly on their way in. He smiled hello at them, and returned his attention to the book and his snack.

It was then that he noticed that the sandwich he had in his hand was not the one he had made himself, but rather a much older, almost entirely green thing that had started to grow fur. He jumped, startled, and threw it away instinctively. What in the world? He peered at it, lying in a disgusting little heap on the floor, from his spot safely on the bed. Harry didn't recognize it immediately, but then it dawned on him. Ron had had sandwiches made by his mum with him on the train, about a month ago, on their way to the Hogwarts school. They'd forgotten all about the sandwiches when Harry instead bought them lots of sweets to munch on, and somehow they must have ended up in Harry's trunk. He rummaged through the bag that laid thrown beside him, finding the jam sandwich he'd made himself. Of course, why would he have put it it the trunk? He really ought to pay less attention to his homework, and more to what food he put in his mouth. Harry shook his head at his own silliness, and chanced a glance at Seamus and Dean, to see if they had noticed anything. It didn't seem like it, and for that he was glad. It would have been very embarrassing to be caught almost eating a murky green, fuzzy sandwich, and he would probably turn from the Boy Who Lived, to the Boy Who Died From Disgusting Poisonous Sandwiches. Granted, he didn't enjoy the whole Boy Who Lived thing either, but it sure was better than the alternative. Who knew what would have happened if he had eaten the old sandwich? What if Dean and Seamus hadn't come in when they did? Would they have found him dead in his bed, with the traces of disgusting green fur around his mouth? Harry shuddered at the thought, and got out of bed. That was quite enough of that, he threw the old sandwich away and went down to the common room, fully intent on finding something that could distract him from the unpleasant experience of almost eating a month old sandwich.

The house elf who cleaned the room during the night made a bit of a grunt when she found the remnant of an old sandwich in the bin – it really stunk something horrible. She hoped no one had eaten any piece of it while it looked like that, she imagined it being rather dangerous and poisonous at this point. She quickly took it away, and made sure to check the sleeping first years to see that they were all okay. This was after all the famous Harry Potter's dorm, and she did not want to be the one to tell the Headmaster that something had happened to that particular student. Satisfied that they all slept soundly, she finished her cleaning, and went into the next room.


	2. Chapter 2

**7 Lesser Known Ways Harry Potter Could Have Died But Didn't**

 **Summary:** A look at some of Harry's close calls over the years, told through seven humor filled chapters... At some point one begins to wonder if this Boy Who Lived really had another secret magic about him, because man, was he close to dying a lot more than the many instances he was already famous for!

* * *

Chapter 2

It was a lovely early October day, and the second year Gryffindors had finished their classes for the day. Harry Potter was strolling around the lake with his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. The sun was shining from a clear blue sky, and things were as good as they could be. Of course Harry would have been feeling a bit better had they not come directly from Professor Lockheart's dumb teachings, or if Hermione could stop admiring the guy for just one minute. Harry found it to be rather odd – Hermione was one of the smartest people he had ever met, yet she didn't seem to realise how entirely incompetent the flamboyantly dressed man was as a teacher. Whatever he and Ron said to argue their point, she argued against them, but her case really wasn't that strong. After all, who thinks the professor's favourite midnight snack is a relevant question on a quiz that's supposedly about dangerous creatures?

"Hermione!" Ron said, getting worked up. "He's an _idiot._ You could pick any other person, off the street, and they would do a better job at teaching us Defence!"

Hermione's eyes turned a dangerous shade of dark brown, and Harry could see that a slight blush flushed her cheeks. He figured she was getting angrier too, and decided to cut in, before his two best friends started a full on screaming match.

"You have to admit that the test he gave us today was pretty pointless," he said, but quickly continued, "But who knows, maybe we get a good score on it, or maybe we actually need to know some of those things one day." Harry didn't believe that in the slightest, but Hermione looked momentarily satisfied. Ron grunted disapprovingly. Harry actually agreed with him, that any other person would probably be a better teacher, but he was too tired to argue about it any more. He didn't want to talk more about Lockheart, and so he tried to steer the conversation to a different, yet connected topic.

"What did you put as an answer for that question about water creatures, though? To me it seemed as though he was describing mermaids, but that can't have been what he meant, right?"

Hermione, looking a lot happier, immediately started talking about her thought process in answering that particular question. Ron shot Harry an annoyed glance, that seemed to say "Did you have to?" Harry only half listened to Hermione's musings, he really only wanted to not talk or think about Lockheart anymore, and didn't really care what they were speaking of instead. His green eyes followed the water circles on the otherwise still lake. They came from the Giant Squid, who was half visible a few metres in front of them. A group of older students seemed to be feeding it toast, as they were throwing bits of bread into the water, and the Giant Squid's head popped up eagerly as soon as the food had disappeared.

"From what I've read, mermaids around here look nothing like what Muggles think, anyway, so I actually wrote-" Hermione was saying, just as Harry lost his balance. His foot had caught hold on a rock, and he tumbled sideways. His reflexes failed him, and to his and his friends horror, he tumbled all the way into the water. He didn't have time to think of the possibility of having hurt himself, nor how utterly embarrassing it all was, before something grabbed him from behind. Harry gasped, and his head went under the water's surface. Hermione's mouth formed a quiet O, as Ron started to scream for his friend.

Harry couldn't hear that though, his ears were filled with murky lake water, and he kept his eyes shut. It had been instinct to close them as he felt himself being pulled under, and he didn't dare open them now. The something that had dragged him still held him in a firm grip, something big and strong, around his waist. Harry nervously poked it with his left hand, and found that it was a slimy smooth something. Suddenly another slimy smooth something touched his face, in an almost gentle manner. Harry was terrified. What by all Merlin's colourful socks was going on, and how would he get himself out of it? He needed air, but obviously he couldn't breath under water, and he could feel himself start to lose consciousness. A slimy something yet again stroke his head, and Harry blacked out just as he was pushed to the surface.

"Oh my god, oh my god, Harry, can you hear me? Harry?"

"I'm gonna write to mum about this, that thing is dangerous and shouldn't be allowed near students, or humans of any kind!"

"Harry? Please, say something, anything, oh god..."

Two voices were slowly making their way to Harry's brain, but they sounded far away, and it confused him. If they wanted to talk to him so bad, why not come closer to where he was? … That was a good point, where was he? Harry were lying on something hard and flat, and rather cold. He realised that maybe it wasn't the yet to be distinguished surface that was cold, but rather himself. He was actually shivering.

"Uh," he mumbled, and blinked his eyes open. Two figured came into view, one freckled boy with flaming hair, and one very worried girl with a mess of brown curls on her head. Harry's friends, Ron and Hermione. Who had been with him as he fell into the water… Ah, yes. He remembered.

"What happened?" he asked, sitting up, only to be knocked back down again by Hermione, who threw her arms around him in a bone crashing hug. "Ouch," he muttered, but hugged her back. He was after all also glad to be alive.

"It was the Giant Squid, oh Harry, I think... I think it wanted to cuddle with you," Hermione said, looking like she almost wanted to laugh, but not knowing if she dared to, having been so very worried. Harry stared at her, and then at Ron.

"Eh... What?"

Ron grinned at him, also visibly relived to see him conscious again.

"Yeah mate, the Squid grabbed you and caressed your whole body! It was actually kind of gross... Plus you almost drowned, although I don't think he meant to, he let go of you after a few minutes," he explained, but it wasn't an explanation that made Harry feel any less confused. Why would the Giant Squid's first instinct be to cuddle a random student who fell into the water? Of course it could have been worse, he could have thought that Harry was yet another snack being offered by the older students, and tried to eat him. Harry shuddered, and again he realised how cold, not to mention wet, he was. He looked toward the place where the older students had been feeding the Squid before, but they were further away now, clearly having walked away just as he fell into the water. Harry wondered silently why they hadn't helped him or reacted, but maybe they hadn't believed or heard Ron's screams about him falling in. Or maybe they thought it was entirely normal for Harry Potter to take a swim in the middle of October, in his school robes. He looked back at his friends instead.

"Honestly though, I think I should talk to mum about this, she'll get mad and probably send another Howler, but to Dumbledore or the Ministry or someone. Can you imagine that, Dumbledore getting a Howler? Wait, that would be embarrassing, maybe it's best if we never tell her this happened..." Ron was saying, scratching his head. He noticed Harry's teeth chattering, and pulled him up. "Hey, we need to get you to the dorm, you need warmer clothes."

Hermione took Harry's hand, and started saying that they probably ought to go see Madame Pomfrey first, to make sure Harry hadn't suffered a concussion when he fell. Ron did not agree, he thought the best idea was to get Harry a change of clothes, as well as ask his brothers Fred and George if they could sneak into the kitchens and get them all some hot chocolate. Hermione started saying that sneaking into the kitchens was against the rules, and that Madame Pomfrey cold give Harry a warm potion, and also dry his clothes. Harry stopped listening, and looked behind him. The Giant Squid waved a tentacle, as if to say goodbye, and disappeared under the surface. Harry couldn't help the smile that played in the corners of his mouth. Okay, so it was really embarrassing to fall into the lake and almost be cuddled to death by a giant squid, but it was quite a funny story. And he was walking with his two best friends, who were currently fighting over the best way to take care of him. Best of all, the experience had completely made him forget about Lockheart.


End file.
